Ease of Use

The C-360 Zoom is clearly based upon the stylish and very
popular Olympus µ[mju:] 410
Digital and 400
Digital models, with the same sliding cover that turns
the camera on and off, as well as protecting the lens, and
the same emphasis on simplicity and ease-of-use. What it has
lost is the shiny metal body of the more expensive models,
although the C-360 Zoom is still very well made and doesn't
cut any corners. Also Olympus do not claim that the C-360 Zoom
is waterproof, as they do with the Olympus µ[mju:] 410
Digital and 400 Digital.

The C-360 Zoom is the kind of camera that you can pick up
and work out how to use within an hour or so, thanks to the
uncluttered and logical design of both the camera body and
its menu system. The camera body is very well thought out.
You will notice straight away that there is no traditional
D-pad on the rear of the C-360 Zoom. Instead there are four
buttons that perform the same functions as a D-pad, allowing
you to scroll through images and the menu system, but which
also have their own specific functions as well. For example,
the top button of the four allows you to select the macro
mode, whilst the bottom one turns the self-timer on and off.
This ensures that a lot of the controls are available by pressing
buttons rather than scrolling through menus, which makes using
the camera quicker and more immediate.

This clever placement of so many options on the exterior
of the C-360 Zoom means in turn that its menu system is uncomplicated
and easy to navigate. As mentioned above, the four buttons
that form the D-pad have their own particular purpose, whilst
pressing the OK button accesses the rest of the menus. These
include setting the image quality, white balance, exposure
compensation and a sub-menu called the Mode Menu, which contains
settings like the metering mode and formatting the memory
card. So the less commonly used options are accessed through
the menu system, whilst the more commonly used options are
available via the press of a button.

Internally Olympus have added a new TruePic Turbo image processor
to the C-360 Zoom, which is supposed to deliver more image
clarity, contrast and brilliant colour and also increase the
camera's processing speed by up to 30%. More about image quality
later - the new C-360 Zoom does feel a little faster in general
use compared to the older Olympus µ[mju:] 400 Digital,
although not enough to make you go "Wow!".

The C-360 Zoom still retains a few of the minor handling quibbles
found on its predecessors. The zoom lens is still a little
noisy in operation (I wouldn't try any close-range candid
street photography with this camera) and the optical viewfinder
is still too small to use effectively - I used the LCD screen
to compose all the shots that I took. Also Super Macro Mode
has to be turned on and off via a menu option; as the default
macro mode isn't that great in comparison, I would have liked
an extra external control on the camera body to access Super
Macro Mode. Other than those minor points, though, the C-360 Zoom
is a very well-built, easy to use and pocketable digital camera
that carries on the good work of the Olympus µ[mju:]
410 Digital
and 400 Digital
models in terms of handling.